"I'm so fresh to death and sick as cancer..."
Lyric: I'm so fresh to death and sick as cancer."
Prompt: Post-Giant war AU that sees Annabeth lose it first
Against everyone's expectations, it's not Percy that caves first.
It's Annabeth.
It's five months after the end of the second Giant War, and it's Annabeth that first displays streaks of uncharacteristic ruthlessness at Camp.
Although it's Percy that choked a godess in her own poison, fought through hordes of monsters and whose nosebleed started the end of the world, but Annabeth was the one whose madness gave way.
Percy's anger was unpredictable, volatile, and embodied all of his father's storms; but Annabeth's anger was like her mother's. She was cold and calculated; she found her foes' weak spots and twisted a psychological knife in them, tearing them apart with words.
It only gets worse as time progresses.
She and a bunch of campers are sparring in the arena during training when one of them goes a bit too far. Annabeth sets off like a rocket.
She has the kid by the throat in two seconds and has him on the ground in three. She presses her bone sword into his cheek, grinning with animalistic glee as blood wells up out of the wound. The kid screams for help, screams for Percy and Chiron and Mr D whilst his friends run away as fast as they can.
Percy is fixing up a shield in the forge at the time with some help from the Hephaestus kids when he hears the screams for help. He arrives not a minute later, his limbs slick with sweat from the heat inside the forge and the run across Camp.
He sees Annabeth laying into the kid on the ground, who looks like he's soiled his pants more than once.
But Annabeth is terrifying. Her hair is sticking up like it's been zapped with electricity, and her eyes are wild and rabid in their sockets. She looks feral; ready for the kill. He's never seen her like this before.
He runs to her, cradles her shoulders in his palms and pulls her away from the sobbing boy, who scrambles to his feet and holds his sword in front of him, arm shaking and body trembling. "Get away from me!" He yells, furiously scrubbing at the tears in his eyes that he hopes his friends don't see. Son of Aphrodite. They were never a very sensitive bunch.
Annabeth bristles in Percy's arms, her muscles thrumming and vibrating with nervous energy she seems she needs to rid herself of. Percy's thumbs run circles around her shoulder blades whilst his voice whispers things in her ear that are just between the two of them. Then the son of Aphrodite does something Percy should have seen coming.
"You freak!" he yells, "Why do you hide behind your hero boyfriend? Come at me!" Then realises his bravado was in vain as he takes a step back and pales.
Annabeth heaves herself out of Percy's hands, growling like a rabid animal. She doesn't even stalk towards the boy, she runs at him. Her sword is in her hands, raised like she's ready to smite him down where he stands. The boy's eyes go wide before he releases a cry and runs backwards, feet scrabbling over the ground in a desperate attempt to get away.
"What the fuck!" he swears, and Percy sees red when Annabeth clashes her sword into the boy's. Once she gets started, he knows she won't stop unless the demigod is dead. He feels a dark urge coming to the surface inside of him. Annabeth can fight her own battles and he loves her for that. But he can't take criticism, especially directed at his girlfriend.
It could be so easy to give in in this moment, and to just join her and slash the boy to dust. But this is the reason that Percy's isn't gone, and Annabeth is. She lost herself to the darkness, and Percy is the light. That's why she needs him, and he needs her.
He sheathes Riptide and starts to run down the hill. Campers duck out of his way left and right, whilst some stand and shout for Chiron. Percy reaches Annabeth as she has the boy bundled against a tree, slamming the butt of her sword into his ribs. The boy begins to cough blood; and Percy fights against the red haze in front of his eyes.
Percy's breath leaves his throat in rough gasps when he puts himself in front of Annabeth, facing her and her sword whilst he sees her eyes swimming in dark fury. The boy behind him whimpers and trembles and Percy, for a moment, can see himself laughing scornfully at the display at his back. But he forces his head back into the game, because he can't allow himself to lose control now.
"Let me through," Annabeth growls, holding the tip of her sword against Percy's chest. Percy looks at her.
"No."
The boy behind him slumps to the ground. Percy wonders to high heaven why the he isn't running away.
"Move." Annabeth repeats again, and aligns her sword with Percy's cheek, the razor sharp bone biting into his skin. "Or I'll make you." Percy wonders briefly, sadly, why it ever had to come to this. Tartarus drove them both mad enough, and the war that followed afterwards was one Percy never wanted to relive again. The Gods' apologies may have been nice, but they could have never regained what had already been lost.
Annabeth hadn't lost anything. She hadn't lost her mother; her father; her brothers. Neither had he.
Leo. They lost Leo.
Why was this darkness so thick to fight through?
Percy feels a tear sliding down his cheek, and his vision blurs with moisture. He reaches out and takes her hand, callouses on her palms and fingertips painfully familiar. He can't lose her, he decides then. Whatever happens in their messed up lives from this point on may happen; but he can't lose her.
She's the lifeline that's holding him together, even though he's the one stopping her from killing anybody. She might be the one that's messed up the most, but Percy needs a little instability to stay sane too.
Her hand tenses in his. The red's disappearing from her pupils, and the storm is dispersing from the grey in her eyes. She's seeing again, and she's seeing him.
She pulls him into her hard, her bone sword dropping into the dirt and leaving a crescent-shaped dent in the soil.
Percy thuds into her, his arms wrapping around her back and splaying his fingers across every inch of her he can. He hears her racking sobs before he can feel the wetness that's soaking his shirt. He's acutely aware of the fact that she's cried into this shirt before and he hasn't washed it since.
"Hey." He says. "Hey, hey. It's okay." The vibrating of the dark energy in Annabeth's body has turned into shakes and trembles as she just stands there and lets him hold her. "It's okay." He repeats, kissing her hair.
"I was going to kill him." She says, her voice low and dark.
Percy runs a hand over her hair, smoothing the frizzy strands down. "Yes." He said, "You were. But it's okay now. I'm here. You've got me." And he feels her hands tense to press into the skin on his shoulder blades. That's the best thing he can do right now; allow her to hold him instead of the other way around. He's staying sane because of her, and that's perhaps the greatest gift that the gods could have given him.
She's alive and so is he, and he's not going to lose her again.
Sometimes, she needs to tell herself he's alive, too.
Thanks for reading; review if you enjoyed it!